


A Story in Silence

by ToukoTai



Series: Ready To Listen [3]
Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Age Swap AU, Gen, Hiro's there in spirit, Mourning, Moving On, big brother Hiro, he's already dead, little brother Tadashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 10:58:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3689703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToukoTai/pseuds/ToukoTai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At some point you have to get up and start walking again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Sunday. I missed Young Blood so I wrote this for you guys instead.  
> [Theme Music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqi4whXaHx8)

“Are you sure you’re ready?” Wasabi asks him for what seems like the thousandth time. Tadashi squares his shoulders.

“I can’t leave it like it is forever.” They both look up the stairs to his room. Fred and Honey set down another load of empty cardboard boxes.

“But you don’t have to do this _now_.” Tadashi adjusts his cap.

“It’s been a year. I think I’m ready.” He’s fifteen now, starting his senior year in high school. Hiro’s been dead for a year. Dead, but not _gone_. Never _gone_. There’s a white, squishy robot in the garage who carries as much of Tadashi’s own coding as Hiro’s. And a tub of busted microbots sitting next to the workbench as well. No, Hiro’s never going to be _gone_ , not while Tadashi is still alive.

But it’s time to move forward.

He’s spent the last year saying goodbye to Hiro. It’s time to take down the mourning veils and let in the sun. In a more physical sense it’s time to clean his room. _His_ room, just his now. It’s time for the divider to come down, for the second bed to be dissembled. For the pieces of his brother’s unfinished life to be packed or given away.

Tadashi squares his shoulders, feels the worn firm wood of the railing under his hands.

“I’m ready.” He says with as much conviction as he’s ever felt and starts to climb the stairs.

 

It doesn’t get done in one sitting. Even with four other people helping. Hiro was as much a packrat as he could be in the limited space and everything has to be gone through. It takes the better part of a week. Tadashi is thankful he didn’t try to do this on his own, thankful that his friends are here to support him. That Wasabi sits next to him on the stairs when he needs to _breathe_ without the dust of a year clogging his nose and mouth. That Honey Lemon distracts him with pictures of puppies when the weight of what might have been and what had been, becomes too much. That Gogo continues shifting through things, dusting and creating a pile of stuff for Tadashi to sort through and tossing what is obviously junk, even when Tadashi can’t bear to look at the steadily emptying shelves. That Fred disappears from time to time and comes back with drinks, with snacks (all from Aunt Cass) when Tadashi just _can’t_ for the moment. He has to take frequent breaks as unearthing an old toy, notebook or article of clothing sends a sharp wave of memories, of nostalgia through him.

The first robot Hiro and he had ever built together. The old circuit board Hiro had used to teach him about building computers and coding with. A stack of notebooks under his bed filled with ideas that a five and six year old Hiro had created. Hiro’s backup pair of sneakers, bright purple instead of the red of his normal pair.(the pair he died in.) His favorite pair of pajama pants, worn soft from repeated use. A photo album of their parents, their parents and Hiro, just Hiro and a whole section of Tadashi as a baby. Rough drafts of the microbot proposal. The squishy from use beanbag chairs, Hiro’s name written on the tag of one and Tadashi’s written on the tag of the other. Every commendation, award and certificate Hiro had ever received filled another plastic bin under his bed. (Tadashi gets to laugh at the looks on his friends’ faces when they see it. Awards had never meant much to Hiro.)

There were books that Hiro had finished and books he had still been in the process of reading, bookmarks made of receipts and pieces of paper stuck here and there. He’d taken a highlighter and pen to all of his textbooks and Tadashi sets all those to the side. He could use some of them in school but also, Hiro had written snarky comments and corrections in all the margins. Tadashi’s not going to pass up reading those.

Hiding under the stack of old textbooks is a book of sheet music for piano. Tadashi had never known his brother could play.

“Oh yes,” Aunt Cass tells him that night at dinner. “Your mother made him take lessons when he was still a little tot.” She laughs at Tadashi incredulous look. “It didn’t last long, he found it too easy.”

 

He winds up donating all of Hiro’s toy robot and figure collection. All except the one Hiro built with him. He keeps a few of Hiro’s hoodies, shirts so well worn and loved their color is a faded mockery and the pajama pants. The rest go to the second hand store. The notebooks of ideas are stacked carefully into storage bins and loaded into an empty section of the garage. Tadashi readjusts the telescope, leaves it where it is; astronomy had been a hobby of Hiro’s. Not something he had been seriously interested in, but a source of relaxation and amusement. Tadashi has fond memories of his brother shaking him awake in the dark of deep night to point out some set of astrological phenomenon to him. (kicking him out of his bed and dragging him to the telescope more like.) Tadashi had picked it up as a hobby in the past year as well. He thinks he can see what he brother saw in it. You can have all the problems in the world but that’s dwarfed by the fact that so many light years away, a star three times the size of the sun is exploding. And Hiro might be dead, but over there is a cluster of newborn stars and they’ll be around long after Tadashi and his grandchildren’s grandchildren are gone.

Megabot moves from his spot in the garage to sitting on one of the shelves above the computer desk, his yellow smiley face staring out over the room. Tadashi would have been dumb not to repurposes his brother’s computer for his own needs. He’s already gone through the files on it and made back-up’s and copies, in case there’s something there he might need later. Then wiped the drive and started over with his own coding and settings and files and data.

Even the bathroom gets cleaned out. Until there’s only one toothbrush, one set of towels and only Tadashi’s preferred brand of soap and shampoo.

The shelves slowly empty, the closet becomes more vacant, posters and pictures leave their places, the cluttered feel of the room vanishes and their voices echo on the walls. It’s okay; because Tadashi’s going to fill the empty spaces back up. The divider comes down, the windows get opened. Fresh air breathes through the room and sunlight spills across the floor. It’s so bright they don’t even need the light on.

 

There’s only one thing left to do, to finish clearing out what’s no longer Hiro’s side. They left it for last deliberately.

The hardest physical part of the entire venture is taking apart Hiro’s bed and bringing it down to the garage to store. Tadashi likes his own bed more. (It’s bigger.) It’s also the hardest emotionally as well; Hiro’s bed had been Tadashi’s haven during the turbulent time after his sudden death. It was the only place where Tadashi could wrap himself up in things that smelled like Hiro. After a year it no longer does, and Tadashi hasn't used it since that last night after the bot fighter's alley. Wasabi hands Tadashi a screwdriver. The mattress, sheets and pillows had been packed away,(with the exception of one pillow that Tadashi had stolen for his bed.) it’s just the frame left. Tadashi takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. And starts taking apart the frame.

The bed going away means Hiro isn’t coming back. For real. This room is no longer his room, is no longer a shared room. It’s not Hiro and Tadashi’s room anymore; it’s just Tadashi’s room. Alone. And it only has Tadashi’s bed in it.

The computer desk is moved over to where Hiro’s bed used to be. Tadashi’s desk is installed in the computer desk’s old place. His bed moves further out from his corner to the center of the room. Clothes from his dresser fill the closet, leaving clothes less drawers.

“You’re gonna hit your growth spurt soon kid, and then we’ll need the extra space.” Aunt Cass said, wiping her brow with the back of an arm, after pushing the dressers over a little. Tadashi nods, plopping one of the bean bag chairs into the space where his desk used to be, Fred positioning the other one across from it.

 

At the end of the last day, Tadashi stands in his doorway with his hands on his hips. Surveying his new old new room. It’s so very different from what it was when Hiro was alive, looks so different, even though none of the furniture is new. Most of his brother’s things have been packed up, or given away. But Tadashi made sure to keep some things from his brother here. The extra pillow on his bed, the red glowing sections of his computer, Megabot, all these to show that Hiro had been _here_. Had made his mark on this room while changing the space to better allow for Tadashi to grow into his own without him. This is the room that Tadashi is going to live in, on his own. It’ll work, he nods to himself.

Says good bye to his brother one last time.

And closes the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fifty years down the line, your kids have kids and things don't hurt as much as they used to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Theme song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cotXCdRg1AY)  
>  Title of fic clearly based on this song.

“Who’s that grandpa?” Tadashi followed the finger point to the wall of pictures and _oh_. Oh. It’s amazing, he can walk past this wall every single day for the past twenty years, but only every once in a while will this picture leap out at him.

“That’s your great uncle Hiro. He was my brother.” It’s one of the few nice pictures there are of Hiro. Hiro at eighteen, the year he died. It’s from the waist up and an outside shot, green trees in the background with a blue sky. Hiro’s wearing a white button down shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a tie loosened around his neck, the first three buttons on the shirt undone showing the white undershirt. Tadashi doesn’t remember what the occasion for their dressing up was, but Hiro is smiling brilliantly at the camera, eyes squinting in happiness. One of his arms is resting on an equally smiling younger Tadashi’s head.

“So Hiro’s named after him?” A small brown haired boy conked out for a nap in his mother’s arms comes to mind. The hair a shade too light to be Hiro’s, the eyes a bit too dark as well and while smarter than average, (Very smart, it seemed genius did run in their genes.) not quite as smart as Hiro had been. But then Hiro’s kind of genius was a once in a millennium gift. Tadashi had no doubts that the young boy currently sleeping in his living room would change the world every bit as much as the original Hiro had been going to. Had done in the end.

“Yes, he is.” A small tug on his sleeve.

“What happened to great uncle Hiro?”

“He died before you were born, _long_ before you were born, before your father was born even.” He sees the question in the brown eyes. “There was a fire and he didn’t make it out.” Ran right into it, in fact. The thought doesn’t cause him to wince any more. It’s been a long time since he came to terms with what happened.

“Do you miss him?” Tadashi reached out and straightened the picture that wasn’t crooked. Did he miss Hiro? Yes, he missed his stupid genius of a brother.

“Every day.” It still hurt, even now, decades afterwards. But it was never as bad as it had been; time dulls the edges of hurt. It wasn’t forgetting or even feeling less, it was a different kind of hurt. An old wound that had healed but left its scar. His grief was no longer the ripping gaping hole inside the patchwork of himself, but an ache. One that, like his knees, panged when the rain came.

Another more insistent tug on his sleeve.

“Tell me about him.” With a laugh, he gently picks up the small child and starts walking to the kitchen. If he’s going to talk about Hiro, he’s going to need some comfort food. Like cookies.

“Where to start…?” He mused as they walked their way into the kitchen. Tadashi sits the child into a chair and stares into space thoughtfully for a few minutes before knowing exactly where to begin. “Hiro was my big brother and my best friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit autobiographical. My mother had two younger sisters who died young and decades before I was born. She misses them. If she has pictures of them, I've never seen them. I did inherit an extensive Minnie mouse figure collection from one of them though.

**Author's Note:**

> This didn't fit with Tell Me Anything's feel, so I posted it on it's own. The second chapter will be posted later today and it's just a quick six hundred word future thing.


End file.
